Destiny
by Outtie
Summary: Maybe Zelena wasn't the first female to get her hands on Rumple's dagger and maybe there is more to the events in "Skin Deep" then we know.


Destiny

He felt it immediately.

Rumpelstiltskin shuddered.

The dizziness and nausea nearly choked him as he, helpless, was pulled away from his spinning wheel and pushed through the woods as if a blade were prodding him in the back. The powerful magic tugging him ever faster to the one place he wanted least to go.

Someone had discovered his dagger.

He emerged into the clearing with a grimace of hatred on his face to find a small child digging in the soft earth with _his_ dagger.

"THAT'S NOT YOURS!" he growled at the child.

The child looked up from her digging and he realized it was a girl, perhaps seven or eight years old.

"It can't be yours" the child said, "It's been buried for at least two hundred years, I'd say, given the depth and the other pieces I found above it", she gestured to her right towards a pile of pottery shards and animal bones. He could see why she'd held onto the knife, it was the only object she'd found that wasn't broken. "And you couldn't possibly be two hundred years old" she continued, "unless you were a fairy or something. Are you a fairy?"

"NO!" Rumpelstilskin growled, "Not even close."

"Then this can't be yours" she repeated. Smiling she returned to her new excavation, again using his immensely powerful dagger to gig at a small hole in the dirt.

"How did you come to find that blade, Dearie" he asked, trying a different tactic.

"Oh, I read about this place in one of my books…"

"A… book?" The Dark One repeated disbelieving his own ears.

"Yes" she smiled broadly and leaned over to retrieve the book from her bag.

Unfortunately, she didn't drop the knife to do it.

"According to my book" she said, flipping pages in the ornately decorated book until she came to a page with an illustration of a castle, "A great castle once stood on this spot. The castle of the great king usually referred to simple as, The Great Uniter."

The Dark One gazed at the child in apparent puzzlement.

The child noticed his puzzlement and said, "You see, before there were the many Enchanted Kingdoms in the realm, there was only one, a mighty empire united under a wise and kind king..."

"Everyone knows this story, Dearie" The Dark One said, closing the book with a magical flick of his pinky. _Why is this silly bookworm not afraid of me?_ He wondered as he absently plotted to snap her neck and pry the dagger from her lifeless fingers.

The child looked towards the west, apparently puzzled as to where the sudden gust of wind had come from to close her book so abruptly. "Well," she continued her story, this time setting the book aside, "did you know that the king kept a powerful sorcerer at his side?"

"Yes, yes…"

"And that the king may not have been as kind as the legend says he was."

"They never are, Dearie." Rumpelstiltskin was growing impatient.

"My book is different from the rest, it doesn't say the king was good and kind at all, it says the king was a cruel tyrant to his people and he only became king of all the lands by forcing his sorcerer to kill all the other kings and their sons as well."

"And by terrorizing the populace into silence on the matter" Rumpelstiltskin added in a whisper.

"Yes. And the king ruled so long that by the time he finally died, at an impossibly old age, there was no one left who remembered the true story of his rise to power."

"No one left…" Rumpelstiltskin echoed hollowly.

The child thought he looked sad, so she hastened to add, "But after that the many kingdoms returned, new kings were chosen to rule each land and the people were happy again."

"Every story needs a happy ending" he nodded, "Speaking of which…" he held out his hand, "my dagger?"

The child looked at him,_ really_ looked at him I mean, for the first time. "Who are you?" she asked. "No man can be old enough to claim to own this knife and yet…"

"I am not a man."

"You look like a man to me" the child said, "But your skin is so unique; are you from another realm; Perhaps one across the water?"

"I am not from across the water or from another realm at all. I am simply a monster, Dearie. That is all you need to know."

"You're not a monster! Monsters are scary beasts that gobble up little children who… who run away from home."

"Did you run away?" he asked gently, for a moment at least forgetting who he was and remembering who he was all at the same time.

"Maybe a little" she said cautiously, "My father doesn't like me to read books all the time. He wants me to learn to act like a 'lady' and I don't like it."

"I'm afraid I can't help you there, Dearie" Rumpelstiltskin sang, "A lad is a lad and lady is a lady and a lady can't become a laddie any more than a laddie can become a lady. Magic can do much, but not that."

The child laughed and clapped her hands, enjoying his strange manner of speaking, "Really, it's not that I mind being a lady" she said, "It's just that I don't enjoy balls or dancing nearly as much as I enjoy my books. And learning which fork to use at a dinner party isn't nearly as exciting as looking for buried treasure in the woods."

"No I don't suppose it is," he said, "But I would think digging with a sharp blade like that was a poor way to go about it…" Rumpelstiltskin magic'd forth a shiny golden spade with a ruby encrusted hilt. "This would be much more useful, don't you think?"

The child looked from him to the golden spade, her eyes wide and shining, "You ARE a wizard, aren't you, a real honest to goodness wizard!"

"In the, 'er…, well, let's call it flesh" The Dark One quipped.

"But if you're a wizard why would you want a twisted old knife for?"

"Because it's mine, Dearie" he coaxed.

"It's yours… so that must make you Rumpelstiltskin!" she gushed, brandishing the knife to show off the name on the hilt.

Rumpelstiltskin tensed as the magic pulled on him from the unknowing child's grip.

"Please" he begged, "I must have that dagger, you're making me ill waving it about like that!"

"I don't understand…"

"That dagger is mine" he said through his clenched teeth, "It's a part of me. When someone else holds it, they hold my freedom in their hands."

"You mean I can control you with it?"

"Yes!" he growled, the words coming unbidden to his tongue, drawn forth by the power of the dagger.

The child narrowed her eyes, "Hop on one foot" she ordered, pointing that dagger at Rumpelstiltskin.

Rumpelstiltskin hopped.

"Pat your head" she ordered.

Rumpelstiltskin patted.

"Rub your belly."

Rumpelstiltskin rubbed.

"Now do all three at once!"

Rumpelstiltskin did.

The child laughed rocking back and forth on her knees in merriment.

Rumpelstiltskin scowled, "I'm glad I could amuse you, Mistress. What would you have me do next, dance like a chicken, perhaps?"

She stopped laughing and became suddenly serious, "I'm sorry," she said, "I was only testing to see if the magic was real. I didn't mean to make fun of your plight. It must be awful to be under someone else's power like that. Here take it." she handed the dagger back to him, hilt first. Rumpelstiltskin accepted it eagerly, pulling it delicately from her hand, careful not to scratch the tender flesh.

"You should hide it better next time" she said solemnly.

"Well it seemed to work for the last two hundred years or so" Rumpelstiltskin quipped.

The child smiled and rose to her feet; tucking her book back into her bag. She picked up the golden spade and looked from it to her bag and back to Rumpelstiltskin. She held out the spade. "Here, this is yours too" she said, "Besides, how would I explain it to my father? If I told him I found it in the woods, he would come out here with a hundred men and tear the place apart."

The Dark One shrugged and waved his hand over the spade, turning it from gold and rubies to common iron and wood, "There now, Dearie. I think that should solve all your problems" he paused, "well that one anyway."

The child smiled and gazed at the spade, she seemed oddly more pleased by the simple tool than by the golden one he'd tried to tempt her with earlier.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome, Dearie. You run home now. It's getting far too late for little girls to play in the woods. There are dangerous beasts about you know."

The child nodded, reluctantly agreeing. As she turned and headed for the path home, Rumpelstiltskin called to her, "Wait!" he said, "What's your name child?"

"My name is Belle" she called back to him as she disappeared into the woods.

The Dark One watched her as she disappeared, almost absently he repeating her name in a whisper, "Belle…"

THE END


End file.
